Wednesday, January 02, 2013

CNN's Ali Velshi calls out Republican Congressman ON THE AIR for misleading the American people.

CNN’s Ali Velshi tore into GOP Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KN) Monday night about his claim that a tax hike on small business would hurt job creation. Telling Huelskamp he didn’t “believe” his numbers to be true, Velshi mockingly asked, “The vast majority of those businesses are in fact not job creators. You understand that to be the case?”

Huelskamp disputed Velshi’s claim and said that he had “seen research” that raising taxes would impact “41% of business income.” Velshi called him out on his language, saying “41% of business income is not 41% of business, that’s a very, very different and somewhat misleading statistic.” Again Velshi asked, “You understand the distinction, right?”

Velshi then proceeded to silence Huelskamp from speaking any further, saying, “Sir, you put out information to our viewers, you’re on CNN right now. I would like the information to be accurate.” Huelskamp fought to answer, and when he was asked by Velshi whether he wanted to stand by his information, he said, “That’s our best guess. We’re still working on that.”

“I think that’s a guess,” Velshi retorted.

According to Huelskamp, part of the difficulty in obtaining accurate information is that the Obama administration won’t tell his team anything. Velshi slammed him for this misstatement, saying, “We actually don’t have any difficulty getting that information, sir. We don’t need it from the administration, that information is public.”

Yes! This is the kind of thing that we need to see MUCH more of from our journalists, ESPECIALLY after we saw jut how allergic to actual facts they were, and how determined they were to lie to the American people.

Having said that I think Velshi did an excellent job here and even followed it up later in the hour and reported this:

VELSHI: Wolf, I just want to... I've been doing some research as I promised I would do in the conversation that we had with Congressman Tim Huelskamp, quoting what he said was a study by Montana State University. We're working our way through that study, but I'll tell you the facts that we have right now.

If businesses... if everybody who earned more than $250 thousand saw an increase in the top tax rate from 36 percent to 39.6 percent, that would be 3.5 percent of all small businesses. That would be 940,000 businesses. That's I think a number that the Congressman was quoting. So at $450,000, it is nowhere near the number that the Congressman was quoting.

But let's just be generous and say that it was that. Of that number, only a very small proportion are not hedge funds, partnerships, law firms, companies that don't employ a whole lot of other people. So the Congressman's facts are just incorrect on this. There is nowhere near a million businesses that will be affected by this increase of taxing people above $450,000.

And THAT my friends is how you do it!

You know now that Velshi has joined Soledad O'Brien with this whole "holding Republicans accountable for their bullshit thing," I am thinking of possibly tuning in to CNN once in awhile. You know, when MSNBC is once again broadcasting that stupid Lockup series perhaps.

Maybe since they have seen how quickly Fox is losing viewers they might be reconsidering this whole idea of becoming Fox-lite.

16 comments:

It is about fucking time! I really am thinking that for the regular media (not Fox) it is "anyway the wind blows" that influences how they handle things. Instead of reporting things as they really are, they have been trying to report what they thought people wanted to hear. Now that it is abundantly clear that the majority of American voters are very positive about the President and very negative about the Tea Party and the right in general, they won't be trying so hard to find as much negativity about the left point of view. I think most of the media were just as snowed by Fox as the Republicans were about how most people really think.

Now that Faux ratings are deteriorating, and MSNBC's are improving, CNN seems to be trying harder (stronger competition, I guess!). It's good to see Soledad, Ali and even Anderson usually research-prepared and ready and willing to argue the "facts" with some of their political guests. Velshi is one smart Canuck, by the way!

I was switching channels last night and was surprised that I preferred CNN's coverage of the House vote to MSNBC's, mostly because of Velshi but also liked a female reporter (don't know her name).

The first thing they need to do when talking about small business is define whether their reference to 'small' means number of employees or amount of revenue. However, in this case, for the new increased tax rate over $400K, it doesn't really matter because it's just not going to hurt job creation, the economy in general, or the individual tax payer. There's simply no sacrifice and no pain involved.

The GOP is going to be find it hard to continue their nonsense theory of trickle-down economics. Watch out for them to look for another way to harm the economy and try to tie it to the tax increase.

Velshi may have hit it on this one but he too was one of the CNN clan that courted the baggers for so long -- as Velshi did a bus tour following the Baggers I believe in 2010. He's guilty as the others at CNN & Fox of 'raising up' the bagger profile.

Velshi talks a good game of 'business knowledge' but know -- his experience was learned on the job at CNN and elsewhere including his wife who is a hedge fund manager. His schooling degree is in 'religious studies' -- nothing anywhere near economics or business.

Ali IMO is like Erin Burnett in some ways when reporting -- he's married to a hedge fund manager and Burnett is married to a Citigroup executive -- sets up for conflicts of interest when they voice 'their opinions' without disclosing their personal & financial interests.

A degree in religious studies does not necessarily mean he only took classes in religious studies. Further, his "on the job" learning now amounts to ~ ten years at CNN, a time span considerably longer than that of a four year degree.

We do need more good journalists who do their research AND make these idiots squirm and twitch in their seats. I'm glad to hear that some on CNN are coming around, they lost me when they went "more to the center" (foxs lite). Rachel, Ezra Klein, Tameryn Hall, LOD and Chris Hayes rarely disappoint. Current has some great content as well.

About Me

This blog is dedicated to finding the truth, exposing the lies, and holding our politicians and leaders accountable when they fall far short of the promises that they have made to both my fellow Alaskans and the American people.